BR Ambedkar: Reduced to just a tool for politicians to gain power!

Four persons have been recently arrested for providing fake OBC certificates to people at a ‘good’ price. Rajkumar Sharma, an advocate practising at Karkardooma Court, was detained while his brother Mukesh Kumar, Dharam Pal and Bhopal were arrested based on a tip off from Sharma’s shop in Sunder Nagri in Delhi.

“We have recovered six fake stamps in the names of a school principal, doctors, executive magistrate and oath commissioner, among others. Over a dozen OBC forms carrying forged signatures and stamps too have been seized,” said a senior police officer.

It seems these people took Arvind Kejriwal’s support for Ambedkar and the marginalized, way too seriously. Recently, Arvind Kejriwal planned to make the process of issuing certificates simpler. We predicted that the first thing that will start happening would be the non-SC/ST people, who prefer ready-made jobs, would start making fake certificates. And that is exactly what happened! Wouldn’t it be better if Kejriwal would have adopted a more holistic way to help the ‘others’, rather than simplifying the process for getting the certificates of reservations?

In 2011, former PM Manmohan Singh told Narendra Jhadav- a noted policy maker and a social activist – to chair a committee and prepare a master plan for a memorial and an international centre for B.R. Ambedkar. The committee finalised its report in September 2012 and waited for certain things to move, but unfortunately, nothing did. The well planned strategy went dormant and people forgot what they had earlier promised.

On the 125th Birth anniversary of Mr. Ambedkar, the parties and politicians talked a lot about Mr. Ambedkar and empowering the Dalits and the other people who have been pushed to a periphery. But, the truth is that the congress lost an opportunity to work on the master plan, and even the BJP has not really looked into it.

Narendra Jhadhav

Ambedkar has been used by all the parties- BJP, Congress and AAP. He has not been given a dignified treatment. When alive, he was offended by both the BJP, and Congress. The issues range from the Hindu Code Bills to personal insults, to the non implementation and diversion of the Tribal and Scheduled Castes sub-plan. Some people in the BJP and RSS are always giving an impression that Ambedkar was a hindu sudharak (reformer) and the corollary to that is he was against Muslims and Christians.” ‘Ghar wapsi’ is being compared to Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism.

Both are misleading and untrue. In fact, he took the Muslim League’s support to get into the Constituent Assembly. On Hinduism, Ambedkar said he was born a Hindu, but would not die a Hindu. He made a distinction between Vichar Dharma and Aachar Dharma. The former, the philosophical underpinning of Hinduism, is wonderful. It is the practical aspect — how you practise Hinduism in everyday life — where problems arise. So, in asking Dalits to come into the fold, where is the BJP going to place them in the social structure? Which caste are you going to assign Dalits?

All political parties are using the Dalit votes to win the elections and gain popularity. Once they are done with it, they conveniently forget about all the promises. Dalits number 167 million. They cannot be forgotten! The truth is that B.R. Ambedkar has been disgraced and trivialized to serve the ulterior motive of these Hindutva-preaching people. They use his name as a tool to gain power and remain in it. However, they fail miserably when it comes to action. There was a case of a Dalit woman burnt alive in January 2015, then again in February. We flip the newspapers and see myriad news on such cases, the known ones pass their emotional statements, some laws are enacted, but no one really pays attention to Dr. Ambedkar’s quest of decentralising the centre. The essence is lost as the action is politicized.